Another vehicular anecdote

A few months ago (I don't exactly recall the date), I went on my first major excursion without my father (who carries, among other things, an extensive map of our general area in his head). My sister had to get to her orthodontist appointment somehow, and with my father off at work, it fell on me to get her there. He had printed out and left for me a set of very nice directions on how to get to the clinic, which was at one of the UNC centers in Chapel Hill. I very carefully read through it, then tossed it into the back seat and thought nothing more of it for the moment.
It was a beautiful, warm spring day: the sun was out, clouds billowed gracefully across periwinkle skies, and I drove with the windows down and my music up, as is my custom (every teenager has her follies, and such is mine). My mother was in the passenger seat, rather worried (and with good cause, considering her previous experience in driving with me and her loathing of strange places). My sister was in the back seat, happily singing along with the CD. All was well.
And then I missed my exit.
I knew, deep within my very marrow, that the exit I had just passed was the exit I was supposed to have taken. Panicking within my being, but outwardly attempting to maintain my composure, I took my leave of the interstate, hoping to somehow turn around and go back.
After driving some little way on this new exit, I was hopelessly lost.
I called my brother, which didn't help much on this occasion, as neither of us had any idea where I was and he couldn't very well come to my rescue if I couldn't be found. I was on my own (figuratively speaking).
Very calmly (I'm sure I was very calm - - on the outside), I requested that my sister read aloud the directions to me. No, I had not missed my exit - - I had, in fact, exited too soon. This was of no great help, as by now I had no idea where the interstate was or how to get back onto it even if I found it.
I popped in an Enya CD (which was soon to become my car distress music) and continued driving.
Somehow, by some great miracle, I stumbled into Chapel Hill. A confusion of streets led me to our parking deck, and after that it was only a brisk walk (or as brisk as we could walk without leaving our mother behind) into the center. Victory! We weren't too late for the appointment!
A brief while later we were back in the car. I don't know how it happened, but for some reason I either had no directions going back or didn't think I needed them... In short, I got lost again.
For the next hour or so I searched for a way home in an exceedingly haphazard pattern: I would go down a street for a ways and, if I felt I was getting too far away in the wrong direction, I would turn around, go back to Chapel Hill, and find a new street to follow.
This continued for quite some time until drama saved me for the first time: I encountered the new Playmaker's building in all its glory, beaming down on me with its old familiar face. I knew this place! How many times I had come here, for performances and for rehearsals! At last, something I recognized!
Soon I encountered another landmark: the parking lot in which we always sheltered during those long play weekends! Its ticket booth seemed to have an encouraging look about it. Now I was sure I had taken the right road.
But no amount of right roads will help one if one does not know which right road to take next. Soon I was lost again, perhaps more hopelessly than before: all I could do was follow this little road of mine and hope it got me somewhere. By this point, Enya had been playing for an hour and more, cycling over and over, but it seemed to be all that was keeping me sane.
At last, at last, drama saved me again! I encountered a certain street, which happened to fall along a route I had memorized for getting to my drama camp last year. After going the wrong direction down it for a mile or two, this road led me with unerring purpose to...
"He thalatta!" I cried, quoting something I'd never read. It was a curious expression, which my father had told me to employ whenever I encounter a certain highway.* (I think he meant it in jest, but it has now become a habit). This certain highway practically goes by our doorstep, and if I could just manage to turn the right way, I could get home!
And I knew, deep within me, that left was the right way to go. That drama camp had given me hope, just when all hope seemed lost.
Now was no time for Enya (which we were all thoroughly sick of by this point). I popped in the first thing that came to hand: Barbie Princess and the Pauper**.
That is how I came to find myself at a stoplight, idling next to some personage broadcasting a thumping bass, while my own windows were rolled all the way down to let loose the glory of two teenage girls piping along with "If You Love Me For Me".
"You say your love is true, and I hope that it will beeeeeeee~"

Twenty minutes later a frazzled mother, a much-put-upon sister, and an exhausted driver all stumbled out of the tiny Celica in which they had just spent two tiring hours.
All in all, I spent three hours lost in and around Chapel Hill on that fateful day.
And that is why I always memorize my directions AND write them on my hand before going to new places.


*It means, I think, "The sea!", and was cried by fleeing Greeks who, after a long and arduous journey, found themselves at last at the sea, and thus with a definite way of getting home. So my father tells me.
**An aside: around last Christmas, my father and I went on a long car trip together. I had packed several CDs of interest to me, including Barbie Princess and the Pauper (ahh, childhood, how you cling to one!). Since I didn't happen to have the case for it, though, I popped it in one that rightfully belonged to a Ravel CD. My unwitting father opened this, expecting to find excellent classical music, and exclaimed in tones of shocked disbelief, "Barbie?!" ...Then promptly popped it in anyway.